Necromancer
=Necromancer= Description Necromancers are sorcerers who are adept at the dark art of Necromancy, the summoning and creation of the living dead. The Necromancer can raise the buried dead or those that have fallen in battle as undead troops to strengthen his army. This practice is forbidden by the gods and Necromancers who are foolish enough to disturb the dead will lose their sanity in the process. Only dead humanoids can be raised as undead and once they are destroyed they cannot be raised a second time because by that time their bodies are too broken. The other aspect of Necromancy is the harvest of hands. On stormy nights darkly robed men collect the left hands of hanged murderers. These are called the Hands of Glory. The burnt flesh of such hands is pleasant to ghosts and evil spirits who can aid the Necromancer in his horrible art. However, the hands can be used in even worse ways. When enough Hands of Glory are burnt, spirits from the darkest realms can be called to instruct the Necromancer how to turn his body into that of a living dead. The Necromancer has very weak troops at the start of the game. It is essential for him to quickly find a battlefield or a graveyard. The ritual of Dark Knowledge is important in this search. The animated dead are weak and they never heal wounds sustained in battle, which makes them unreliable in the long run. Use the apprentice to animate undead. Otherwise you will go mad and lose the ability to take rational action. Summoned undead require Hands of Glory, which can be found in villages, towns, cities and gallows. The ultimate goal of most necromancers is to transform into a powerful undead creature and live forever! Transforming into a lich will make you immune to insanity and vampires can cure insanity by eating villages. Abilities: *Necromancers can sense the amount of dead where they are. *Necromancers can raise the dead. *Necromancers collect Hands of Glory from large villages and towns. *Necromancers can use Hands of Glory to summon more powerful undead beings. Lands Starting Spaces: 1 Dark Citadel, 1 Farm, 1 Gallows Armies Starting Troops: 1 Necromancer, 1 Necromancer's Apprentice, 10 Spearmen, 5 Archers Recruits: Leaders: # 1 Necromancer's Apprentice¹ ↳ Necromancer¹ ↳ Vampire¹ ↳ Vampire Count¹ ↳ Grand Necromancer¹ ↳ Lich¹ ↳ Demilich¹ * 0 1 Goblin Chieftain * 0 1 Captain * 0 ¹) Collects Hands of Glory *) Price varies Regulars: # 5 Spearmen 50 0 5 Swordsmen 50 5 5 Archers 50 0 5 Crossbowmen 50 5 5 Heavy Infantries 50 25 1 Catapult 25 50 Mercenaries: # 10 Goblin Spearmen 50 0 10 Goblin Archers 50 0 1 Scout * 0 *) Price varies Summons: # 1 Abomination Major Summoning 1 Banshee Major Summoning 1 Carrion² Major Summoning 1 Death Knight¹ Major Summoning 1 Dire Wolf Minor Summoning 1-10 Dispossessed Spirit(s) Minor Summoning 1 1 * Dust King¹ Dust Priest Dust Walker(s) Summon Legion 1 Ghost Major Summoning 1-3 Ghost Warrior(s) Minor Summoning 1-20 Ghoul(s) Minor Summoning * Longdead (Armored) Raise Dead * Longdead (Bare, Fist) Raise Dead * Longdead (Bare, Spear and Shield) Raise Dead * Longdead (Bare, Spear) Raise Dead * Longdead (Bare, Sword) Raise Dead * Longdead (Spear) Raise Dead * Longdead (Sword) Raise Dead 20 20 20 20 Longdead Hastati Longdead Principes Longdead Triarii Longdead Velites Summon Legion 1 Mound King¹ Minor Summoning 1 Mummy Minor Summoning 1 Raven Familiar Minor Summoning 1-3 Shade(s) Minor Summoning * Soulless Raise Dead 1 Spectral Horseman Minor Summoning 1 Tartarian Spirit¹ Major Summoning 1 Undead Dragon Major Summoning 1 Wight Minor Summoning 1 Wraith¹ Major Summoning 1 Ziz Major Summoning ¹) Leader ²) Can act independently *) The number of summons depends on the supply of corpses Strategy Refar32's strategy notes on the Necromancer: The Necromancer is something of a mixed bag. He can be reasonable powerful given the right circumstances - access to a sufficient amount of Hands of Glory as quickly as possible and, a little later, access to the sites where upgrading to Vampire or Lich is possible. The flipside of the coin, though - too few Hands of Glory, especially early on, is a weakness which is hard to compensate, and no access to upgrading sites seriously hampers progress in the mid-game. This means that in some societies (ages), the Necromancer is rather difficult to play and has a high risk of meeting a pemature end. Even if the required resources are there, the highly erratic summoning spells are another risk to face. If things go smoothly, a Minor Summoning will provide some Ghouls - by far the best deal for 20 Hands of Glory, since the Ghouls will replicate themselves when they kill a humanoid enemy, which can cause a snowball effect. If you have less luck, you'll waste months worth of saved Hands on Raven Familiars or some of the slightly better solitary summons. This effectively can end a game if it happens too often. Relying on the supposed core mechanic of the Necromancer, Raising the Dead, too much is actually not recommended either. The big problem here is the Insanity penalty - it'll quickly add up and make your leader increasingly unreliable and thus worthless. Once again, luck plays a major role - if you can get some additional apprentices, it can be a worthy tradeoff to use one or two for Raising, providing some buffer troops, and as his insanity stacks up, maybe you can upgrade him to a Vampire later on - or just eventually park him somewhere and replace him with a fresh apprentice. Personally, I tend to make do with summoning until I can get a Vampire or, better still, a Lich. Finally, if the endgame is ever reached, the Necromancer only has a few useful units - mainly the Abomination, but also Undead Dragon and Ziz, both of which are unable to heal, though, which is a major disadvantage. Nurturing an Abomination (or several of them) can result in (a) powerful blocking unit(s) with tons of HPs, but corpses incorporated can no longer be raised. Still, backed with ranged units and a few spellcasters, that's probably the best the Necromancer can bring to the endgame table - and it doesn't hold a candle to some of the more powerful classes. Further Tips Insanity stacks with 6 per raise, and is a direct % chance of becoming useless per turn (thus pushing over 100 insanity will permanently render the unit immobile, he can defend and nothing else). Insane units cannot be commanded in any way- no movement, no rituals, no merging into armies. However, an apprentice with a high stack of insanity can be dragged along with your main army. Once the apprentice reaches 50+ stacks, on a "good" day you can add him into your main caster's army. Even on days hes stark raving mad you can still drag him around. He won't reduce your army's movement, and in battle the "insane" apprentice will cast spells normally. Its better than just abandoning him in your starting citadel, and you'll have him on hand to turn into a vampire when you find an Old Castle or some form of temple. The Soulless he summons up can be freely left behind as defenders as you go, as you'll be moving slow enough as it is if your apprentice is insane when you want him to Raise Dead over an strong source of corpse. Ignoring Raise Dead early game is horribly crippling, and can be managed with little loss. Using your apprentices and dragging their insane hides around will net you a host of units to power through the early game. The Gallows that always starts next to your home citadel will also have a modest amount of corpses on it. Using your apprentice to raise dead on it, leaving behind soulless to guard the gallows/home citadel against the odd dear, then merging back into your main necro's army is a great first turn move. You'll gain defenders and 6+ longdeads, which with all the Spearmen and Archers that you start with can easily knock over the first large settlement (aka source of Hand of Glory). This lets you save all your gold for picking up spare Necromancers Apprentice and the odd Assassin. You can then un-merge him from your main stack to Raise Dead over that settlement, and any other large sources of corpses you find. This will keep you steamrolling throughout most of the early game while you can hold onto your hands to rank up your main caster(s). Again, you can freely leave the slow soulless behind as defenders, which will seriously cut back on the hassle of losing towns and mines to a single bloody deer. Again, keep merging the Raise Dead monkey into your main army after every raise will limit the downtime you suffer from insanity. Sometimes he'll un-merge insane, but so long as you don't try and raise with him once he reaches ~50 insanity, you will loose only a few turns this way. He'll continue to cast normally in combat until you find an Old Castle or some form of temple to upgrade him (becoming a Vampire or Lich clears all insanity). While end game you lack access to any super-strong units, you gain a huge bonus to mobility in the form of the Demilich. Travel the Stygian Paths will allow you to pick up and move to the far corner of the map late game. While your Demilich can't move normally or carry troops with him, he is immortal and nigh-invulnerable. Summon up a commander (major summoing/summon legion have good chances of this), and begin abusing your teleport->raise dead. Within a few turns you can have a massive army appear deep behind enemy lines. Equipping him with items that provide additional invulnerabilities (fire, ice, lightning) can be particularly devastating. I've had my Demilich drop down into the middle of an enemy citadel with 100+ units, casters included, and come out victorious. With a little luck, your Demilich will heal any magic damage it takes with drain spells. Refar32 is spot on about the lack of powerful end game units, however. 100+ longdeads and soulless mean nothing when the enemy has several powerful casters/units with area attacks. Particularly the Cultist and all his upper-level summons will be burning your army back to dust in no time. Finding one of these on the far corner of a larger map will be basically game-over for you, unless he is already weak enough to take out. Category:Classes